Friday, May 24, 2013

I've got nothing against self-selecting internet polls - I've run a few myself over the years, and they can be quite entertaining if a lot of people take part. But at the end of the day they are unweighted, unscientific voodoo polls, and even if several thousand people took part they wouldn't tell you a thing about the true balance of public opinion. They are, in the immortal words of Peter Snow, "just a bit of fun".

Last September, Subrosa ran a self-selecting poll on her blog about whether an independent Scotland should be an EU member or not. The results were as follows -

(The other obvious option of staying in both the UK and EU does not seem to have been provided.)

TOTAL ANTI-EU - 248
TOTAL PRO-EU - 110
UNSURE - 29

Both at the time and then again yesterday, Subrosa made quite extraordinary claims about the significance of those results. I challenged her on both occasions, pointing out that bloggers tend to attract readers who agree with them, and she was kind enough to respond. I must say, though, that I found her responses somewhat baffling. Here was the first one in September -

"Yes James, I am anti-EU and that will continue. Many of my readers disagree with me about lots of issues and I respect their opinions.

If you're suggesting that this poll is invalid because it's turned out to be 50/50 then I think you're wrong.

In no way am I stating the poll is an accurate reflection of the whole of Scotland but at least it proves that 176 people don't want an independent Scotland in the EU - if nothing else. :)"

The first couple of sentences are irrelevant because I hadn't suggested there was anything wrong with an individual continuing to be anti-EU, nor had I disputed that some (ie. "many") of her readers disagree with her.

The third sentence is peculiar, because self-evidently the poll hadn't turned out to be 50/50, nor had I suggested that was the reason for it being invalid.

The fourth sentence is technically accurate, but so what? The fact that 176 people hold a particular viewpoint is spectacularly unimportant in the overall scheme of things. Even if we assume that every single one of them was a Scottish resident (almost certainly not the case), that would constitute a mere 0.00003% of the population.

And here was her response to me yesterday -

"A great majority of the readers of this blog support independence James and have done for many, many years. It's quite strange that you're implying the majority are against the EU because I would disagree.

What was interesting about my tiny poll was the number of people who were undecided about the EU yet continually we're told that most of us support it.

Believe me not all my readers agree with me; in fact many take the trouble to tell me just how strongly they disagree and I respect their views."

First of all, I didn't "imply" that the majority of Subrosa's blog readers are anti-EU - I was simply looking at the poll results which clearly suggested that was the case. And was the number of undecideds (a mere 29 people) really the most interesting thing about the poll? How exactly does that contradict the idea that "most of us" support membership of the EU?

And once again, I hadn't disputed that some of her readers disagree with her - I simply pointed out that it was unsurprising that the majority do not.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Hello, I am Robert MacDonald, guest poster. I yearn for the day I can get rid of Alex Salmond - by voting Yes in 2014. But what will that shining post-referendum future hold? I thought I'd share one vision of our future, as imagined by the Better Together campaign and their supporters. Have a read and decide for yourself how credible this future is. We can't say we weren't warned...

The Scottish elector woke up the day after the referendum. He went to get his morning newspaper, and read the front page headline 'Cochers Choppers Off'. The rest of the paper reiterated all the stories it had run in the previous two years warning him of the dangers of independence.

He had a bit of bother paying for the taxi back into town as the only currency he had to pay with was Scottish pound notes which were no longer legal tender, except it wasn't Scottish notes. It was Euros. Even though Scotland had been kicked out the EU.

He went to the bank to withdraw more but found that he was suddenly tens of thousands of pounds into his overdraft, his bank's Scottish customers having been saddled with the entirety of UK banking debt. Unfortunately, despite taking on all the debt, he couldn't see how he was going to pay for it, as the remainder of the UK had kept most of Scotland's prize asset, oil revenues. And this was only the start of his economic woes. The economy was crashing about his ears because Moodys no longer rated the economy AAA. I mean, AA. I mean...

Back home, to soothe his jangling nerves he switched on TV to watch his favourite programme, Eastenders, but it was no longer available - in fact, the whole of the BBC appeared to be jammed, despite being sure his wife's cousin in Ireland could get it. He looked at his father visiting from England and asked "what now?" "Charades!" came the reply.

Deciding to drive out into the countryside he couldn't afford petrol as the price of oil had suddenly shot up. Or maybe it had plummeted. It was all too volatile to be sure.

He looked up in the sky and there? What was that? Nuclear missiles from North Korea! His last mortal thoughts on this accursed day of Scottish independence, as the nuclear missiles rained down and the last helicopter left Edinburgh for Carlisle: 'Thank goodness Alan Cochrane, at least, is safe - if only I had heeded his warnings'.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

I'll have to make this a very quick post because I'm in a mad rush, but the latest Panelbase poll on independence has thankfully contradicted Ipsos-Mori by showing the No lead dropping. Here are the figures -

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 36% (-)
No 44% (-2)

And the SNP's lead in Holyrood voting intentions remains at ridiculously high levels for this stage of mid-term -